


Petrichor

by wonder_boy



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Angst, Gen, Hints of Non-Consensual Drug Use, Hospitalization, Malcolm Bright Gets a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Psychological Torture, Recovery, Whump, hints of non-consensual touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonder_boy/pseuds/wonder_boy
Summary: His throat is painfully dry – parched from overuse. Raw from screaming. Raw from crying. Raw from begging them to stop.-No one said recovery would be easy.A sequel toMaelstrom.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Jessica Whitly
Comments: 16
Kudos: 81





	Petrichor

**Author's Note:**

> pet·ri·chor
> 
>  _(noun)_ a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.

It’s cold.

Suspended on clouds.

Trapped in a steel coffin six feet below the ground.

Washed up on the shore buried in sand, wrecked by the tide.

The sound of the alarm buzzing is welcoming now, a part of his routine that never gets old and remains annoyingly consistent.

He aches. His body feels like it’s on fire. Blazes at every twitch, every miniscule movement. It’s too painful to move, but they take him out of his cuffs without much care.

His throat is painfully dry – parched from overuse. Raw from screaming. Raw from crying. Raw from begging them to stop.

He’ll never get to see the beach again. They have made it very clear he’s not going anywhere.

Forever he remains chained to a bed, choking down chalk until it bleeds through a needle that leaves a pattern of bicolor monkshood bruises behind in its wake.

Drifting through the silence.

Silence of nowhere.

He can’t see the shore. No sun in sight, dimmed by a veil he can’t see. Veils he can swallow on his good mornings, and feel during his bad nights.

Right now, he can’t even open his eyes.

Then he hears it.

Not the waves or the croak of desertification.

Three words that don’t register as real.

A delusion only his mind can conjure when he’s so weak, broken, and beaten down like this. Three words that don’t make sense, and never will.

“You’re being released.”

* * *

With the way she paces, Gil is convinced Jessica has made sizeable divots in the pavement.

“Jess,” he calls from behind, tired and worn down. “You’re making me dizzy.”

She waves him off with a scoff and tightens her hold on her jacket. As much as he doesn’t want to say it out loud, watching her pace stirs the nerves under his skin. He’s just as anxious as she is.

It’s been two months since then. Two months since Gil made a promise to Malcolm that he would save him from that hellhole he put him in. Two months of making calls and pulling every string he had access to, grappling with The Commissioner about Malcolm’s release and the outcry of the Whitly children bringing unnecessary press to the NYPD.

He practically bent over backwards to grant Malcolm his freedom from Claremont, much to everyone’s dismay. Gil has lost hours of sleep over this, over what he’s done. Now, as he stands behind Jessica at the gates, he operates on nothing but black coffee and a naïve sense of hope.

The day has finally come, and he’s nervous as hell.

“Where is he?” Jessica grumbles, checking her phone for the hundredth time. “He was supposed to be out six minutes ago. What’s taking them so long?”

Gil sighs and stuffs his hands in his pocket. “I’m sure they’re bringing him out now. We just have to wait.”

“It’s been months since I’ve seen him, Gil, _months_. And I hate myself for being too scared to step foot in this place, but I need to know. I need to know if he’s okay.”

He understands better than anyone, so he lets her vent, and remains silent. His words are futile.

They stand in the frigid tension for another five minutes. Then, in the distance, Jessica whips her head around to see two guards escorting Malcolm out. In a wheelchair.

She looks back at Gil with a frown, and he wears one similar to hers, both wondering the same thing.

The walk down the pavement takes too long. Jessica instinctively moves closer toward the gate as the guards walk closer, and Gil is right on her heels to make sure she doesn’t get too close. To see the kid for himself.

A sharp buzzing sounds, and the gates open.

“Malcolm – sweetie,” Jessica gasps, arms stretched out as she rushes to crowd him. “Malcolm?”

Before she reaches out to touch him, she immediately pulls her hand back and covers her mouth in shock. On his chin lies a yellow bruise with a twinge of purple that’s big enough to cover her thumb and too colorful to miss. “What the hell happened?”

“Took a bit of a stumble the other day, I heard,” pipes up one of the guards. “A nasty fall. Nothing serious, though. Everything’s intact – no broken bones, just bruising.”

Gil narrows his eyes. Somehow, he knows that’s not what really happened.

Jessica steps closer and gently holds his face, careful of the bruise, and brushes some of the hair out of his face as she takes a moment to look him over.

He’s sitting up in the wheelchair with his eyes closed, head leaning over to the side like it’s too heavy to hold up, dark circles under his eyes like he hasn’t slept with collarbones a bit too pronounced under the flimsy jacket they gave him.

He’s sitting so eerily still that she wonders if he’s unconscious.

Jessica’s heart breaks a little more when she sees how frail he’s become.

He looks sickly. So far from himself.

So far from her.

She knows she’s not the greatest mother, and she knows it will take years of apologies and making up for her absence in her children’s youth for Malcolm and Ainsley to truly accept her. She wasn’t there when they needed her all those years ago, and she wasn’t strong enough to save her family from Endicott’s ruin – hell, she _invited_ him in her home without a second thought.

And boy, is she paying for it now.

“He’s freezing...”

She turns back around to Gil.

“Help me get him in the car.”

One of the guards takes a step forward, “Would you like some help, miss?”

Jessica shoots him a look that frightens Gil, even now.

“I think you’ve done enough,” she grits through her teeth.

Gil hurriedly walks over to stand at her side, protective of Malcolm and shields him from the hands of the guards. They allow him to be wheeled to the black SUV that waits for them, Adolpho perched by the head of the car as they approach. “Give us a hand,” Jessica rattles off, then swings the door open and quickly hops in the backseat with her arms out.

Malcolm’s brought to the edge by the car. With Adolpho’s help, Malcolm is scooped up from the wheelchair and into his arms bridal style, head lulling against his broad chest, completely undisturbed by the sudden movement.

Gil stands at his side as Malcolm is placed in the backseat practically in Jessica’s lap, her arms holding him up as she leans against the seat with her son, his legs gently placed on the bed of the car until they fall to the side in an awkward angle.

Gil takes a few seconds to check over Malcolm – as pale and unnervingly still he lies against Jessica – and makes sure he’s tucked in just fine before he slams the car door shut.

The guards start to retreat back up the long concrete path towards Claremont with an empty wheelchair. Gil looks on with disgust as they walk away on their high horses without consequence, then swings the passenger door open and slides in.

“Where to, miss?”

Jessica pulls Malcolm’s head under her cheek. “Just drive.”

The engine revs up, and Claremont fades in the background.

At her direction, Adolpho keeps his foot on the pedal without saying a word. The car ride is silent, empty of conversation but full of unspoken words and the intense, simmering anger that wells into the floor mats beneath their feet.

Months gone. A body void of the life that contained it, lost somewhere in the distance of a memory too far back to recall.

No one wants to say it. Gil takes the initiative.

“We should get him to a hospital, Jess.”

She doesn’t respond. Instead, her hand cards through Malcolm’s hair in an attempt to soothe herself from the very thing that burns in the back of her mind. Gil has a point, but she can’t bring herself to admit it.

Her son needs a hospital – a real hospital.

They saw him in that chair. Limp. Bent over. Pale as a winter morning, no color in his cheeks and no light in his eyes. Numb to the world around him, drifting along the reality where no sound emits.

Strung out and sedated against his will, Malcolm is nothing but a husk of who he used to be.

They know this. In the deepest, darkest corners of their minds lies the inevitable of what’s to come. Things that have changed. Things that will never be the same.

Her heart breaks all over again. “I don’t want to send him back there, Gil.” Jessica’s fingers gently brush over his cheek, “I can’t.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

She knows why they treated him differently. Why his father gets off scot free while his son becomes a poor excuse for entertainment and the closest thing to a walking corpse if he was sober enough to stand on his own two feet.

To send him to the Whitly manor will cause more damage than what is already inflicted, and she might never see her son ever again. She can’t even begin to think of the legal pressure she is about to put on Claremont for breaking Malcolm beyond repair. Judgement Day _will_ come.

There’s only one way out of this.

He’s not asking her to, but she doesn’t have much of a choice.

* * *

Two days in the hospital turn into eight. A simple IV drip evolves into more needles and forced feedings.

Preliminary test results were shocking to say the least.

Dehydration. Malnourishment. Excessive amounts of Diazepam in his system, floating around with several other depressants they’ve never even heard of.

It explains the muscle weakness, loss in memory from chronic abuse. Decisions and dosages made and created for him, completely out of his control as he waited pliantly for the next round to come.

Too much in his system to let him go any time soon. Too much in his system to even think about putting him back on his regular medication – any kind of medication.

Physical therapy. Diet plan. Flash cards.

The most important part: patience.

They needed to start from the ground up; a clean slate. The doctor whose name they’ve long forgotten reassures that with the right plan, Malcolm is expected to make a full recovery. Physically.

Jessica makes a mistake; she asks the doctor what would become of his mental health, knowing damn well just how fractured it was before he was locked down.

They declined to answer.

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

Three days. It’s three long, agonizing days of no sleep in crooked chairs, unshed tears, and cheap cafeteria coffee that does nothing for their nerves.

Three days before the monitor spikes in the dead of night, and Malcolm so much as stirs in his sleep. Jessica is there to witness the night terror in all of its glory, the power it wields over him, draining all of his energy as it runs its course.

They never gave him restraints. No strength to run if he’s too tired to move. To live. To breathe.

Calling a nurse in meant sedation. Jessica refuses.

Gil is in the middle of running down a suspect when his phone angrily buzzes in his pocket leaving a trail of six missed calls and two unread messages from Jessica.

Malcolm doesn’t wake up again, but it’s a start.

On the fifth day, he stirs. The sound of his strained groans pull Jessica out of her fatigued slumber, neck seizing up and cramping as soon as she takes her head off of her fist.

Her eyes stare at the sight before her, not sure of how much more heartbreak she can handle.

He tugs at the heavy blanket over his body, face scrunched up in pure agony. Malcolm’s mouth hangs open as he screams – or, at least, tries to. Held down by something she can’t see, no noise comes. Breathless and terrified, he draws a silent scream as he twists and turns from the monsters that claw at him in the night.

The very monsters that make him wish he were dead.

On the sixth day, Gil spends his entire lunch break out of the office. He grabs a sub on the way to the hospital but never gets around to eating it. He sits in Malcolm’s room and talks about their current case in hopes of familiarity, but Malcolm’s silence suggests otherwise.

A nurse comes in with his own lunch.

They try to test his solid intake.

Malcolm refuses to eat.

A few hours later, they try to attempt some light physical therapy – stretching.

Malcolm refuses.

He’s too sore, too tired.

A flash of pink comes across his vision and he is reminded of the plastic cup, chained beds, and rough hands that were always a bit aggressive; scenes from a time he doesn’t remember.

A time too blurry to recall. A time his body remembers very vividly.

It scares him into submission.

Eventually, Malcolm complies. He doesn’t want to get in trouble.

He doesn’t want to go back there.

Eight days in the hospital become eleven for extended observation. They are sent home with an active plan for his recovery curated with daily exercises, recommended dietary requirements, and a list of psychiatric resources they can reach when they feel he’s ready for it.

Malcolm is escorted to the black SUV waiting for them in a wheelchair once again, but this time, he’s awake and alert in proper clothes.

With some help from Gil, Malcolm is able to sit in the backseat next to Jessica, cradled in her arms with his head resting in the crook of her neck while he drifts off to sleep to the lull of her hand in his hair.

By a stroke of luck and a piece of mercy from his boss, Gil is granted a week vacation, thanks to a combination of unused personal hours. Per Gil’s persistence, Jessica relinquishes and allows him to take Malcolm back to his townhome, going on about some promise he made to him.

It nears sundown by the time they settle in. With Adolpho’s help, Malcolm is carried into the spare bedroom that is always been preserved for him, decade old restraints collecting dust in a box full of memories and trinkets that didn’t make it to D.C.

They’ll get him new ones. Until then, Jessica and Gil watch over the sleeping figure in front of them, drowning in the fresh bedsheets.

In the dead of the room, Jessica leans into Gil. “What if we’ve lost him?” The tremble in her voice startles him; a twinge of guilt doesn’t sit in his stomach well. The nagging doubt that she may be right.

He thinks she has shed enough tears in eleven days than she’s had to in years. Jessica keeps her gaze at his chest as he pulls her into his arms and snakes one around her waist with one hand resting on the back of her head.

Her voice cracks again. “What if it’s too late?”

Here, he doesn’t have an answer for that.

It’s his job to find an answer when there is none, when there isn’t enough evidence to back a claim, when there’s a body lying in the street with nothing but a face and no name attached to it. It’s his job to find an answer when there is none, but he comes up short, and he can’t find it in his heart to lie to her.

To pretend that everything will be okay.

So, he holds her tight as she buries her face in his sweater when she doesn’t hold him back. Her hands remain clutched in tight fists on his chest, and he distantly wonders if she’s going to hit him, scream at him, berate him for everything he’s done because he knows he deserves it.

He did this, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

* * *

It’s not the sun that wakes him.

Not the prick of a needle.

Not the blaring sounds of the alarm.

Instead, gentle whispers call out his name. Nothing different than the one of his fathers, or the girl, or the guards that toss him out of bed every day.

“It’s time to wake up, dear.”

Malcolm stirs with a groan.

The bed feels too soft for his stiff back, plush enough to alert him that he’s not in his room, but someone else’s.

Warm sheets. Traces of lavender and oak. Skin covered with fabric that’s no longer itchy, but comfy with the smell of fresh laundry. Everything is so soft that he feels like he’s floating on the clouds over the beautiful ocean.

This is wrong.

“Malcolm?” The sweet voice above him is deceiving. “Malcolm, look at me,” she calls, but he’s uncomfortable, and he can’t find the strength to turn her away. “Sweetie, it’s okay now. You’re safe with us, okay?”

A nightmare.

His mind loves to play tricks on him.

Nothing is ever this good – only in white hospital gowns and jumpsuits can he find peace, the real, tangible reality that is his now.

Not this.

He doesn’t notice the tears falling down his face until her soft fingers caress his cheeks to wipe them away.

“Oh, honey, you’re shaking,” she whispers, her eyes watering as her brows dip with worry. “It’s okay now. Everything’s going to be alright.”

Somehow, that feels like a lie.

It’s the lady from his hospital room. Her name sits on the tip of his tongue but he can’t quite figure out who she is. She is nice though. Albeit a bit pushy and dramatic, but nonetheless, she seems to care a great deal about him. He doesn’t know why.

It’s a familiar feeling he can’t place, like a child that’s hurt themselves and starts to cry for someone, anyone to come and take the pain away.

A child who cries out for their mother.

Then his eyes grow wide. He looks her up and down from where he lies until all of the pieces come together in one giant dizzying picture.

The surprises are exhausting. Tired of talking to people he only sees in his dreams. She used to sit in his hospital room for days, tucking him into bed and yelling at the nurses when he couldn’t speak for himself. And yet, he never made the connection until now.

Until this very moment.

“Mother?”

Jessica immediately steps back from the bed with matching wide blue eyes. He must be right, because at the mention of her name, she pauses, then she crumbles, tears well up in her eyes and threaten to spill over.

“Malcolm?” Her hands hover over his body, anxious and unsure of where to put them. “Do you – do you recognize me?”

He slowly nods in his own disbelief as he drinks in every feature on her face in case he never sees her again. “Mother…”

Months.

For months he’s been thinking about her. Practically dying to see her.

He always wondered if she was okay. If she changed her hair, visited his sister, grieved on her own, or felt like she was all alone.

He always wondered if she was thinking about him.

His arms shake as he tries to lift them off the bed.

He wants to hold her. Be held. Tell her every bad thing that happened to him. What they did to him when nobody was around. All of the dirty secrets he was supposed to keep.

He can’t quite reach her. “Mom,” he huffs, and he is overcome with tears.

He’s so exhausted now; from the crying, the fear, the drugs – everything. Even in the here and now, safe where they won’t find him, he wants to fall asleep and never wake up again. Perhaps, it’s for the best.

Her heart can’t take any more of this. “Oh, come here, Malcolm,” Jessica sits on the edge of the bed and gently scoops her arms underneath his frail body and slowly pulls him into her embrace, restraints still slack in his arms.

As weak as his body still is, Jessica can’t help the startled gasp that escapes her lips the second he wraps his arms around her. He grabs fistfuls of her shirt, hangs on for dear life and curls himself against her to be as close to her as humanly possible.

Malcolm clings to his mother as if he were eleven again, disturbed by another gruesome night terror that can’t seem to shake. So, she holds him. Pulls him close with enough space to breathe. Rubs his arms back and forth in soothing circles, tracing patterns with her fingertips under his dry skin as he struggles to take it all in.

Under her maternal instincts, Jessica is beyond pissed.

She could conjure up the most damning lawsuit in judicial history with the best lawyers money can buy at her side; evidence stacked high enough that no judge would be able to deny the abusive claims made by their defense.

Maybe she can work something out and throw Martin to the wolves at Riker’s again if it meant Claremont had to make up substantial compensation.

Even though it is not about the money, she wants every single bastard at Claremont to pay.

Rage aside, Jessica puts the idea on the back burner.

For right now, she’s just relieved to have her son back.

* * *

He feels gross. Even with the fresh clothes he’s been given, he knows that he probably spent a lot of time on hospital sheets, moving around in places that aren’t his own.

He doesn’t know how he got here – or where “here” _is_ – but it feels like it’s been forever since his last bath, as horrible as it was.

The door creaks on its hinges and startles him from his train of thought. To his surprise, it’s Gil at the door with a sheepish smile on his face like he’s been caught. “You’re awake,” he says, shutting the door behind him. “I thought you’d be sleeping by now.”

Malcolm doesn’t know what he means by that, so he stays quiet.

Gil quickly realizes what the awkward silence means. “Well, I’ve made dinner if you’re hungry. It’s just soup with a little bit of rice in it, nothing too fancy. You don’t have to eat it right now if you don’t want to.”

A subtle, quiet attempt to allow him to have a say in what he wants after being subjected to such cruel routines. It hurts to see him like this. Every waking moment he sees Malcolm is a nauseating reminder of what he did to him when he left him there to rot.

Gil scans Malcolm’s body from the door with a grimace. He’s swimming in his clothes. “Is there anything you want to do, kid?”

Malcolm lays still for a minute and stares up at the ceiling. He’ll need assistance if he leaves the bed. He hates his body for what they did to him, and he hates the way the soreness and chronic fatigue keep him chained to the bed with a grip stronger than the restraints.

He doesn’t want to feel like a burden more than he already is. “No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” Gil pries a bit more, mindful not to scare him off. He can tell just how uncomfortable he is in his new clothes, and the damp line of sweat that coats the back of Malcolm’s shirt is not hard to miss.

Silence stretches on. It dawns on Malcolm that Gil is basically a mind reader.

“Come on,” Gil sighs as he unclips his restraints. “Let’s get you cleaned up. How does a nice warm bath sound?”

* * *

Malcolm regrets this.

Gil has him sitting upright on the toilet seat as the bath starts to fill up with warm water. Gil checks the temperature a few times before settling on a spot he thinks is suitable, and pours a tiny amount of bath salts in his hand and spreads it under the water from the faucet.

He regrets agreeing to this.

It’s going to be weeks before he can get the strength in his legs back and be able to properly care for himself, but until then, he has to rely on someone else to take care of him. Helplessness is not in his vocabulary – he can clean up his own messes without help from anyone.

At some point, Gil turns the faucet off once the water sits at a good endpoint. A shiver runs down Malcolm’s spine at the onslaught of a memory, one very recent with a wound too fresh to be picked at.

The calloused hands.

A scratchy brush.

The stench of cold tap water.

Everything he escaped comes running back to him at full force leaving a trail of touches he can’t see. He doesn’t want to get in.

“Kid?”

He looks up from the water.

“We don’t have to if you don’t feel comfortable.”

If he wasn’t so exhausted, Malcolm swears he can see the hesitation in Gil’s frame. He shakes his head – he can’t waste what’s been given to him.

“I’m fine,” he mutters. “It’s okay.”

Gil takes one long look at him before he lets out a sigh and pushes himself off the floor. “Alright, kid.” He stops short of him. “Arms up.”

Malcolm complies and raises his arms as high as they’ll go. Gil tries to ignore how his arms shake at the strain of keeping them up and gently pries his shirt off over his head. Gil tosses it and crouches back down in front of him, eyeing his sweatpants as he thinks of a way to get them off without having him move too much.

He knows that the longer he stalls, the more uncomfortable it will be for Malcolm. “Here,” Gil says, arms out at Malcolm’s sides. “Lean on my shoulder for a second.”

He reluctantly complies. There’s a burning ache in his hips the further he leans forward into Gil that makes him squeeze his eyes shut and bite his lip. He uses whatever strength he has to lift his hips off of the seat, which allows Gil to slide the sweatpants off his legs with ease.

Next goes his underwear, and Gil makes it point to get them off quickly without stalling. When he’s finally undressed and ready, Gil does his best to try to ignore the body frame of the frail man in front of him, but it’s next to impossible.

From where he stands, all he sees is bone. Skin stretched like a blank canvas on its wooden frame, his skin wraps around his bones in a way that makes Gil’s stomach turn. It’s as if he’s been starved, depraved of sunlight and care, fed to the wolves then abandoned to fend for himself.

He can see it in the dips in his hips, in the visible cheekbones under his dark circles, and in his protruding spine under the bathroom lights. Gil can tell by the visible shaking just how much effort it takes Malcolm to sit up, so he pushes it to the side to save him some dignity.

It doesn’t help much. Malcolm drops his gaze to the floor, heat creeps up the back of his neck and the tips of his ears redden.

He’s _staring_.

Maybe he’s disgusted by the grotesque shell of a body perched on the toilet seat like some sad, pathetic kid off the street.

Maybe he fears one wrong move will break him and shatter him to pieces.

Maybe he pities him, and feigns sympathy to make it seem like he cares when in reality, the sight is repulsive.

Malcolm knows if he takes his eyes off the floor, he will be met with the sad eyes that still haunt him in his dreams. The same sad eyes that find him ugly and misshapen.

He doesn’t even have the strength to cover himself up.

Gil rolls up his sleeves. “On a count of three,” is the only warning he gets. Malcolm’s arms hook around Gil’s neck as Gil carefully picks him up bridal style, and notes just how light he’s become. He hovers over the tub for a second before he positions himself, drops to one knee, and lowers Malcolm in until he reaches the bottom.

“Is it too warm?” Gil immediately asks. “I can put some cold water in if that’ll help.”

The first thing that comforts him is the warmth of the ocean swirling and changing shape around his legs, and the touch of seafoam feels like a playful escape. The water flows just how he imagines it in his dreams. 

It’s perfect.

Malcolm shakes his head. “No.”

Gil takes him for his word. “Okay.”

The room falls silent again. Gil fixes his sleeves to rest above his elbows and plucks a hand towel from the rack with an unopened box of soap. He drops the hand towel in to soak in the water, opens the box to drop the bar in his hand, and picks the towel back up. “Tell me if I need to stop.”

He doesn’t get a reaction, but he doesn’t expect one.

Sitting under the veil of warm water and the pleasant smell of lavender, Malcolm keeps his gaze on the water to avoid being stuck in his head. Then Gil advances toward him, and he has to repress the urge to move away as far as the tub will let him.

The soapy towel gently glides across his back with the softest touch he’s ever felt. The beautiful aroma coupled with Gil’s tenderness is so foreign to his senses and so out of place that it makes him want to gag.

 _This isn’t right_ , he thinks. _I don’t want this._

Since when did he have a say in what he wanted?

Malcolm doesn’t realize he’s shaking.

“Kid?” Gil’s hand immediately stops on the small of his back. He shakes with such vigor Gil wonders if the water is actually too cold for him. He dips his hand in the water to test it once more and sure enough, the water is perfectly warm. “Malcolm?”

He’s stuck in limbo.

Malcolm knows that he’s no longer physically trapped in that hell of a home; mentally, he can’t shake the strings loose from his wrists and ankles nor the phantom fingers that skate across his skin like they own him.

In essence, they do.

“We can stop. I can get you out so we don’t have to do this. Is that okay?” Fearful silence fills the room next to Malcolm’s insistent shallow breathing. Not sure of what to do, Gil drops the hand towel through the bubbles into the water and quietly sits back on his heels, hands tied as he’s forced to watch the fear take its course.

Malcolm wraps his arms around his middle like he’s going to be sick, and just holds himself there as he shuts his eyes and silently counts to ten.

Then he counts again.

Again, and again, and again.

Tens become zeros quicker than the sand that threatens to take him under.

Then he counts again.

Again, and again, and again.

Sunken by the sand until he finds himself stranded in the middle of the ocean.

By the grace of the waves under the moonlight sky, Malcolm is swiftly carried onto shore by the sturdy tide that holds him. A tremble still runs through his body like a nasty cold, but the adrenaline fades with his need to disappear under the current.

Even so, it’s not enough. He’s programmed to take it without a single complaint. Molded into shape, beaten to understand where his place is in this world.

He wants out.

He eyes the black towel in front of him floating in the water, and grips it so his fingertips brush along the soapy, cotton tendrils of the fabric.

Grounding.

Not a rough sponge, but soft. Not cold, but warm. Not unwelcoming, but strangely inviting.

Something entirely new to him.

“Let me get that for you,” Gil gently pries the towel from Malcolm's hands. He wrings it once and dips it right after, lathered up with soap, and takes it one step at a time, squeezing the water out the towel and down Malcolm’s back.

He lets him.

Still stuck in limbo, Malcolm allows Gil to help him scrub down. It’s an infuriatingly slow process to reassure Malcolm to stop flinching every time the towel comes in contact with his skin, but Gil doesn’t rush; he can’t afford to lose the delicate progress they’ve made so far.

Gil ignores his hair for the time being. They’ve done enough today, and that is an achievement in itself. Getting Malcolm out of the bath and into a fresh towel proves difficult when his legs don’t work like they used to. Slow and steady wins the race.

With a fresh towel wrapped around his chest and draped down his body, Malcolm is carried bridal style into the spare bedroom where Gil sits him down on the bed to dry him there.

Weightless. Gil hates how easy it is to carry him. How skinny he’s become. How he can feel his bones through the towel as he dries him off. It takes superhuman strength for Gil to dial it back and put forth the softest touch he can manage so he doesn’t add to his suffering.

Unfortunately, his only feedback is a wince from Malcolm followed by small jerks every time Gil goes to touch tender areas.

Lotion proves to be difficult as well. It’s made very clear to Gil that Malcolm does not like the feeling on his skin and Gil’s rough hands have a firm grip on his arms and legs that make him want to refuse baths all together.

Though the tints of purple and discolored patches on his skin, Gil wonders just how severely they beat him.

Getting him into clothes isn’t hard, but by then, Malcolm’s eyes start to droop as he nods off.

“Hey,” Gil mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. “I need you awake, kid.”

Malcolm hums and tries to sit up straight. Through jerky movements and shaky attempts, he fixes his posture to the best of his ability, and stares at Gil through hooded eyes. Gil can tell he’s too dazed and exhausted to focus.

“How about we get something on your stomach, hm? I don’t want you to wake up with a headache.”

That earns a frown and another soft groan from Malcolm.

Baby steps require a lot of patience.

“You don’t have to finish the whole thing. Just take a couple of bites, a few sips of water, and I’ll leave you alone.” His hand rubs the back of Malcolm’s neck, grip firm enough to keep him awake but slack to comfort him while his nerves tamper down. “How does that sound?”

The rush of the sea wavers in the back of Malcolm’s mind, calling out to him.

Malcolm slowly nods, about to lose his fight with exhaustion. “Okay.”

Gil gently rubs his leg then heads for the door and leaves a tiny crack as he closes it behind him. Tired of holding his weight up, Malcolm flops down on the bed and into the plush sheets, eyes closing as soon as his head hits the soft pillows.

In the distance, he can hear the rattle of ceramic plates from the kitchen and hushed voices. It takes too much energy to strain his ears to decipher what his mother and Gil could be talking about.

Drifting in the silence is easier.

For once in his life, sleep wins.

He stands in the middle of the ocean, watching as the tide looms in the distance, steadily rising, ready to drag him under.

The last thing he hears is the sound of Gil’s voice from his bedside lulling him to sleep.

It sounds awfully similar to his father’s.

* * *

One evening, Gil and Malcolm find themselves seated on the couch in the living room watching a movie Malcolm picked out. It’s clear he has lost interest in it, because he has found new ways to try and tear holes into his sweatpants.

Another thing that keeps his fingers occupied is the constant drag of his hand over his bare face. Gil shaved him today. A blade to the face horrified Malcolm when Gil brought out a fresh pair of clippers. He’s still not sure how he was able to shave him. A little less of the stubble Malcolm has always kept, but enough hair that doesn’t leave him with a baby face. A clean shave always looked weird on him.

Malcolm can’t keep his hands off of his face and Gil finds this more entertaining than whatever is on TV.

Gil’s face softens when he notices the faraway look in Malcolm’s eyes. Unfocused, dazed, staring off into the space of his mind, not really here or really gone.

He wants to change that.

Gil sits up on the couch and Malcolm doesn’t seem to notice. “I think I’ve got something far more interesting than this.”

Malcolm’s brows raise at that, and he drops his hands from his face momentarily.

“Do you want to see the team?” Gil asks, pulling his phone from his pocket.

A frown crosses his face. “Team?”

Gil leans into the couch as he scrolls through his phone to find a decent picture of the team, one that’s not excessively blurry or with their faces obscured. His photo album is emptier than he expected, so he tries to find individual pictures or headshots.

He lands on a group photo taken at the top of a suite at a Yankees game, Dani grinning as she holds the camera next to a sheepish Malcolm, JT standing right behind them almost out of frame and Gil with a soft smile on the other end.

Gil flips his phone to show him. “Do you recognize any of them?”

The screen momentarily blinds him thanks to the low lit room. It takes a second for his eyes to adjust to the bright screen, but when they do, he gets an eyeful of a photo he doesn’t remember being in. Yet, there he is. With two people he doesn’t recognize.

Then a sharp chill runs down his spine. Fractions of memories all jumbled and too incoherent to make sense of, but they are there, unmistakable. His eyes widen, and Gil holds his breath for a miracle.

_Curls. A tall, bulky silhouette._

“I’ve seen them before,” he whispers. “In my dreams, I’ve seen them. I don’t know where but I know them.” Malcolm snatches Gil’s phones out of his hand to look closer as if he couldn’t see it just seconds ago.

He stares at the phone in disbelief. At one point in time, this was him. Seemingly happy, content, surrounded by people who he could call his friends.

These memories are so far ago, too distant to recall and too familiar that it makes his skin crawl.

Questions engulf him.

How do they walk?

What is their favorite color?

What do they sound like?

Suddenly, he wants to know everything about them. To take back the sentiments that were stolen from him.

His head turns to the side. “What are their names?”

Gil’s heart breaks a little bit more.

He scoots closer to Malcolm and points at the screen. “That’s Dani, and right behind you is JT. And this–” Gil reaches over to swipe the screen, flipping to the next picture. “–is our ME Edrisa. Perhaps one of your biggest fans.”

Gil’s chuckle gets lost in the swirling migraine that hits Malcolm like a train.

_The lady with the dark hair._

“What are we looking at, dear?” Jessica’s voice cuts through the static of the room as she walks in with a teacup in hand and a magazine in the other. Her eyebrows arch at Gil for an explanation, and places the cup down on the coffee table under a coaster and the magazine beside it. “All good things, I hope?”

Gil shoots her a look and a small shake of the head. A slight pout tugs at her lips as she seats herself on the other side of Gil, snakes her arm around his, and leans her head on his shoulder. “Is everything okay?” she asks low in his ear. Instead of answering, he lifts his palm off his leg as if to tell her to wait.

She peers over his lap to watch Malcolm burn holes into his phone, brows arched in curiosity. Shock is written along his features mixed in with a deep sorrow, the kind of sadness that longs for something out of reach.

Malcolm’s lip trembles. He swallows the lump in his throat and slowly raises his head to look at Gil, eyes pleading.

“Can I see them?”

Gil fights for an answer. The problem with granting guarantees is the fact that his team will be torn once they see him like this. It won’t be the homecoming Malcolm hopes for. They won’t be excited to see him; even though he’s been saved from the same hellhole they put him in, Gil knows his team, and he knows they will never be able to forgive themselves.

They never did, even after hearing about his release.

The guilt is a burden too heavy to bear.

“Kid–”

“Do they know that I’m here? That I’m not there anymore?”

Lost in the misty eyes staring back at him, Gil still fumbles for an answer. He sighs and rubs a hand through his goatee. The knots in his gut makes him feel uneasy, hesitant to spark a flame too hot to put out.

Jessica has a clear idea of what Malcolm wants him to do. She can also understand some of the tension riddled in Gil’s frame, and why he’s so hesitant to give him an answer. If only it were that simple.

“I’m sure they do, sweetie,” Jessica cuts in, and Gil’s never been more thankful. “I think we should take it one step at a time. Get you back to the basics before we start adding to your plate. Perhaps we could go visit your sister one day? Maybe we should start there.”

Malcolm hums. Ainsley.

The thought of her hasn't crossed his mind in some time. He can’t even begin to wrap his head around what she is going through, if she’s okay, or if she’s lonely just like him.

Drifting in the same ocean but miles and miles apart, disrupted by the tide that took their family away.

He slowly nods, admits defeat, and hands the phone back to Gil. “Okay.” Maybe his mother is right. She knows what’s best for him, so she must understand something he doesn’t.

Malcolm doesn’t ask about his team again.

* * *

It feels like it’s been forever since he has seen the sun.

The rays glisten from the window through the misty fog and coat the morning dew that slides down the glass through the blinds. They’re drawn just enough for the sun to pour in through the cracks and into the room in warm streaks that light up the soft blankets.

Malcolm shifts ever so slightly to dig himself deeper into the sheets.

It feels like a dream.

A dream he doesn’t want to wake up from.

Drifting in and out on clouds, embraced by the sun. It’s such a drastic change from that place, and Malcolm vaguely thinks he will never get used to this.

“Rise and shine, my love.”

It’s his mother again.

He can feel her warm hand rest on his forehead then, her fingers run through his hair with the softest touch in recent memory. They brush through his scalp with such tenderness it might lull him back to sleep.

“How do you feel?”

His eyes remain shut. A groan is all he can give her, then he turns on his side under the covers, restraints clinking in the background.

Eerily similar to the ones they had him in.

“I bet,” she answers, seemingly fine with his lack of response. She runs her hand through his hair some more, “Gil made breakfast. Let’s get you something to eat.”

Jessica helps Malcolm through his meal. It’s a drawn out process that takes thirty minutes to get through. A single slice of toast, a glass of orange juice, and a couple of scrambled eggs, but to get him to finally eat something solid makes it all worth it.

Malcolm is not sure where Gil is. He hears the faint sound of water running from the other side of the house, but he doesn’t make the connection that Gil is probably in the shower.

He ignores the flashy paper his mother reads. Too much energy to read a single sentence, so he opts out of learning what’s going on in the world and quietly sits in his chair with his hands in his lap.

“So, what’s on the agenda today, hm?” Jessica slams the newspaper down on the table and rests her arms on top, her smile as radiant as ever. “I was thinking we should get you some sun today. It’s a lovely day out – perhaps a quick trip to Central Park? If not, I know this gorgeous little garden behind one of our properties I used to take you and Ainsley to when you were little.”

He wracks his brain for an idea that will suit her speed, but nothing interesting comes to mind. Moving sounds exhausting. It’s all foggy upstairs like sludge sits in his bones, weighing him down until he’s void of any movement.

His mother’s voice sounds like static to his ears.

“What is it, dear?” She lays her hand on top of his, and braces for rejection. “Talk to me.”

He flinches, startled, but relaxes when he realizes it’s just her. She’s about to say something, but her words die on his tongue the second Gil enters the kitchen with different clothes from the night before.

Malcolm wonders why his hair is damp.

“Morning, kid.” Awfully cheery at this hour, Gil strides over to the table and runs a hand through his hair. “Did you sleep good?”

He blinks. Tries to remember how he felt when he opened his eyes this morning. “Good,” he says, but it comes out slow like he’s unsure of his answer.

Silence follows. “Good,” Gil repeats, eyes flickering to Jessica then back to Malcolm. “Did you eat? I would’ve joined you guys for breakfast, but I wanted to give you two some space.” His dopey smile charms Jessica.

“Thank you, Gil,” she says, voice soft with sincerity. “I was just asking Malcolm where he’d like to go today.” Malcolm sends her a weary look. “Or we can stay inside. I’m sure we can find a good movie to watch.”

Though it’s a different suggestion, a movie sounds like too much work as well. He tries to come up with something that isn’t his usual “leave me alone” because he knows he won’t get away with it.

They’re going to try their hardest to engage with him, so he might as well come up with something he would rather do than make his brain work harder than it has to.

It clicks.

_How could I forget?_

The one thing that has kept him going for months.

“The beach.”

Gil and Jessica give each other a look.

“I want to go to the beach,” Malcolm repeats, a bit more confident than before, but he never meets their gaze.

He wants this more than anything. More than life itself. To prove that it’s real – that this is all real. He has dreamt about walking along the shoreline with the wind in his hair, sand in his toes, his worries behind him for months. Not looking over his shoulder for the girl or falling victim to his father’s malicious behavior while the guards watch from their posts, letting it all play out for everyone in the ward to see.

He wants to finally feel free.

He can’t do that if he’s right back where he started.

In his moment of silent and quiet defiance, he hopes they get the picture.

With the biggest smile on her face and her mind seemingly made up, Jessica clasps her hands together. “I’ll call Adolpho to make the arrangements.”

Within the hour, they’re on the fast track to The Hamptons.

They arrive an hour before noon, seated with a suite for the day with accommodations for Malcolm despite pleading with his mother that he doesn’t need any special treatment. He insists that they could’ve gone to a more public beach, but of course, his mother has a flare for the dramatic.

Jessica spends a good portion getting adjusted in their room, rambling on and on about how much the service has changed over the years, fawning over past stories while Gil lays Malcolm out on the bed for some needed PT. Being in a car for a couple of hours wasn’t an issue until he felt his lower half go stiff in the seat.

Gil takes charge as Jessica settles in, a bit overwhelmed by the change in scenery, but is reassured by the fact that he is spending time with two people he’d follow to the ends of the earth.

Lunch is a bit of a blur. The sudden onslaught of anxiety makes it hard for Malcolm to keep anything down without the threat of it coming back up. Soon enough, he stops eating all together. He can’t take another bite.

A stark contrast from this morning’s meal which raises major red flags, but Gil and Jessica don’t comment on it and they don’t force him to finish.

Malcolm goes down for a nap.

In the meantime, they find it difficult to leave him in the suite all alone, so Jessica and Gil decide to stay in their room with an ear pressed to the door. Thankfully, he falls asleep without a fight.

* * *

Before they know it, they’re beach bound.

Gil and Jessica still don’t know why they’re here at the beach in the first place. After his brief sleep, Malcolm was persistent to go down to the water without telling them why, night terrors be damned.

So they did. Jessica packed a light beach bag with the essentials and no plans to actually get into the water; Gil does the same, his bag looking lighter than hers, holding the essentials for both him and Malcolm.

Jessica fussed while Gil helped him get situated with the right clothes and enough sunblock to avoid any nasty sunburns. As if on cue, Malcolm insisted that he was fine while she raved about the dangers of sand and getting sick of the water is too cold.

Nonetheless, they go down to the coast without much complaint.

It’s a slow process.

Malcolm is sandwiched in between the two of them as they walk with him. They allow him take the lead despite his failure to hold himself up on the sand. He leans heavily on Gil’s arm for support the entire way there while his mother tries to make conversation as a distraction. The aching joints protest as his muscles struggle to carry his weight is a never ending battle as the sand mounds change incline and depth with every step.

When they finally turn the corner through a sandy pathway upheld by log posts, Malcolm’s breath is taken away by the sight in front of him.

Freedom.

What lies out in front of him is the stuff of dreams. A beach coated in sand, birds circling above him, a vast ocean that outstretches the sky with rough waters calling out his name.

The very thing that has kept him alive for so long.

And now he’s here. He’s finally here.

Gil and Jessica eye each other with concern. Then, he tugs them along the uneven trail in a hurry, eager to plant his feet in the ocean and stand in the sun, anxious to watch in pure bliss as the waves wash over his ankles.

He loses his balance more than he can count. Aimlessly trots through the sand as if it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, and ignores their pleas for him to slow down. Malcolm is very aware that he’s going to be shackled to the bed all day tomorrow in the worst pain imaginable, but if he pushes himself farther than he’s ever gone, he knows it’ll all be worth it in the end.

Once they’re close enough to the water, Jessica forces them to stop to set up camp. “You need to rest, dear,” she chides as she lays out a towel, “you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep going like this.”

Sweat gleams over his forehead as Malcolm huffs from exertion.

The sea is right there.

“Maybe you should take a break, kid,” Gil adjusts his grip on Malcolm to keep him upright. He also feels the sting of fatigue from hauling Malcolm a few miles under the warm sun. “Relax your muscles, drink some water. I can stretch you out?”

It’s no secret Malcolm is in pain.

He shakes his head. “I have to do this.” His hand trembles as he wipes away the drops of sweat down the sides of his face, “I need to.”

He needs to convince them. To make them understand how dire this is to him. The only thing that might liberate some part of him from the horrors of that place.

Frustration eats away at him like acid eroding every inch of patience he has left. They don’t understand, and they never will. “Please, Gil.”

Everything hurts, they both know it, but Malcolm refuses to back down, and in the back of his mind, Gil knows Malcolm is not going to take no for an answer.

He sighs and kicks off his shoes, and leaves them by the towel. “Lean on my shoulders,” he says, then crouches down to help Malcolm with his slip-ons. Once their shoes are gone, Gil stands back up and gets a hold on Malcolm, ready to walk with him.

They come up to the water hand in hand with Gil’s left arm across his lower back. His grip gets tighter on Malcolm the further they go toward the water. Dry sand melts under the slosh of the waves, and spares a glance at Malcolm.

That faraway look in his eyes is gone.

Gil doesn’t know why the kid needs to stand in the shoreline, wading through powerful waters when he can barely stand on his own. He doesn’t know why the kid needs to stand in the shoreline, but he keeps his thoughts to himself, and follows the kid until he stops just short of the sea.

Gil lets go, and Malcolm is on his own.

He wobbles on his own two feet as he struggles to stand his ground in the wet sand. Both arms stretched out in front of him, trying to get a hold on his balance with some success.

When he’s able to gain some ground, he lifts his head from the sand and stares out into the beautiful clear waters rolling before him.

It’s as gorgeous as he imagined it.

The crash of the waves could lull him to sleep.

The foam running over his toes wrap around him like a cool blanket, soft and inviting.

A handful of rocks steady his grip with the changing tide, and weeds tickle his toes with their feather light touches.

Another small step closer to the water, and then another. Two steps become three, then four, until the fifth step is too slippery to walk on and he nearly loses his balance again.

Even while he struggles, Gil remains restless with his own arms twitching at the side, ready to catch him if he falls.

They never let him out to see the sun.

Today, the sun takes him with open arms, nostalgic like he is seeing an old friend for the first time in months.

They may have taken his memories from him. Cracked him, disturbed him, shaped him into something unrecognizable to those who know him, and nonexistent in the reflection of a mirror.

They stole his life from him without questioning it, without understanding the full story, without looking through the cracks of a serial killer only to find his boy standing there. Innocent, yet guilty.

Lost in translation, the sea always guided him back home.

Here, standing in the throes of Poseidon himself, he welcomes the strength of the sea with open arms, ready for some much needed relief.

It’s the beauty of feeling alive.

A hand rests on his waist comfortably while the other supports his arm to keep him balanced. Malcolm’s teary eyes are met with Gil’s reassuring ones. No longer sad, but lively, hopeful. No longer a figment of his imagination, but real, tangible, someone to hold on to.

Someone who loves him.

“I’m so sorry, Malcolm.” He looks up at Gil, a sullen expression written all over his features. “I mean it, kid. I never should’ve let this happen. I tried to get you out of there for months, but my hands were tied – hell, they didn’t even let me see you. I should’ve been stronger, I should’ve fought harder, but I didn’t, and now–”

Malcolm shakes his head, and physically stops him from speaking with a tap of his hand on Gil’s arm.

“I’m safe now.” His lips curve into a small smile. “That’s all that matters.”

Words fail them both, but they don’t care to change that.

Another set of hands wrap around his waist to his left, and the face of his mother comes into view. Her smile is as radiant as she is even under the shine of the sun.

He loves her, too, grateful for the strength she carries when he is too weak to hold his own. He hopes in due time his memories return to him; the ones that contain his life before all of this began.

They look out to the sea again.

The maelstrom quells its rage as it slows its movement below the surface of the water. Tides come to a standstill. The waves even themselves out until they are smooth enough to walk on, absent of the turbulence that pulled him in all those months ago.

Now, he’s safe in the arms of two people who love him more than words can describe.

Still fighting.

Still alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to scream at me on tumblr @wonder-boy. Thanks for reading!


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